I know pretty much nothing about professional baseball. I watch games and I can tell who can play and who can't, but, in the ultimate scheme of things, I really know nothing about the everyday workings of the game.

I know even less about the business of baseball.

And yet, I will use this space tonight to offer a little bit of advice to four of the Island's best baseball players -- Bobby Lanigan (Adelphi U. from Moore), Mike McKenna (Fla. Atlantic U. from Sea), Mike Hart (Texas State U. from Farrell) and Mike Giuffre (Tottenville HS) -- that were taken in last week's MLB Amateur Draft.

Is that quite pompous of me to offer unsolicited advice to four young men about to make their way through a world I just admitted I know nothing about?

Of course it is.

But, then again, I did make a successful transition from college to the professional level in my desired field, so maybe I can, indeed, help.

But probably not.

Here goes anyway. I'll call it Dan O'Leary's Five Points Of Advice For Major League Hopefuls. We capitalize and italicize it to dramatize its importance, naturally, and we present it in reverse order as to build drama:

5. Play until they pull the jersey off you: In the movie "A Bronx Tale," the character Sonny said that there was nothing in the world worse than wasted talent. Play until you are too tired or too injured to keep playing. Or until you're not having fun anymore. Don't come home because your room at the Podunk Days Inn doesn't include continental breakfast.

4. Don't bore the media: We like to have fun too. Why say "I pitched well. I was throwing hard," when you can say: "I could have thrown a reporter past Hank Steinbrenner tonight!" instead? Nothing like a little sarcasm, also. We can tell the difference. Whiff Albert Pujols with the bases loaded? Tell the media: "Piece of cake! Maybe next time I should throw lefty, just to make it tougher."

3. Remember where you came from: Let's say it's 2015 and you've become an All Star in the Bigs. Don't let me read about how you are turning down a 5-year, $58-million extension because you need more money to feed your family. If you're not playing in Utah or Philadelphia, you should be able to feed them for a long time with that kind of cash. Those who raised you, I'm sure, did it for less.

2. Write a book: Not right away in your first year in the bush leagues, but keep a journal or a diary of your games and hi-jinx. Write about your experiences in towns like Des Moines, Utica, Elizabethton and Yakima, if only because you'll never remember them all.

Not only may this make a great memoir someday in the style of Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" or Pat Jordan's "A False Spring" (and make you some cash), but I happen to know it can be therapeutic.

And this especially goes for you, Mr. Lanigan, because I know you to be pretty funny.

1. And this is probably the most important rule to follow. If you follow any of these points of advice, let it be this one: Don't ever, ever, EVER, EVER, under any circumstances, take any advice from a knucklehead like me.